Abstract

Purpose: the purpose of the research was to examine the relationships between salesperson emotional intelligence, dispositional affectivity and customer-orientation levels.
Design/methodology/approach: seventy-one pharmaceutical salespeople working in the United Kingdom (UK) provided responses to scales designed to assess emotional intelligence, dispositional affectivity and positive and negative affect. The emotional intelligence and dispositional affectivity scores provided by the salespeople were then analyzed to determine the degree to which they related to customer-orientation levels.
Findings: the findings indicated that salesperson emotional intelligence levels were positively correlated with their customer-orientation scores. This finding indicated that UK pharmaceutical salespeople who rated higher in their emotional intelligence levels were also likely to rate higher in customer-orientation. Positive dispositional affectivity levels were also significantly correlated with salesperson customer-orientation levels. This result suggests that UK pharmaceutical salespeople who possessed more positive orientations tended to also be more positively oriented to the customer. However, negative affect levels were not significantly correlated with salesperson customer-orientation levels.
Research implications: from a theoretical perspective, these findings provide a venue for future research in professional sales which could focus on the relationships existing between salesperson behaviors/characteristics that relate to salesperson customer-orientation, skills, social desirability and performance.
Practical implications: from a practical basis, the findings suggest that pharmaceutical firms in the UK who are focused on increasing the customer-orientation levels of their sales force would be well-advised to assess the emotional intelligence and dispositional affectivity levels of both their applicants and their salespeople and use this information in their selection and training activities.
Originality/value: the research reported provides an initial assessment of the relationship between these variables in a pharmaceutical sales situation in the UK